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From the Shadow: A Greek debt default and exit from the Euro have been averted, while the rout of the Chinese stock market continues. There exist little new domestic data to guide the Reserve Bank this month. Official inflation equals 1.5%, well below the RBA’s target band. The CAMA RBA Shadow Board on balance prefers

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By Leith van Onselen Eleven years ago I was working at the Australian Treasury as the Department’s trade analyst, where I watched in disbelief as the former trade minister under the Howard Government, Mark Vaile, signed Australia up the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA). Although signed with much fanfare, the AUSFTA was a dog of

From the AFR: Tony Abbott has secured Bronwyn Bishop’s resignation as Speaker but has defied public anger over her spendthrift ways by clearing her of any wrongdoing and blaming the parliamentary entitlements system. The Prime Minister accepted Mrs Bishop’s resignation and announced a “root and branch review” of entitlements in a decision he hoped would end three weeks of chaos

By Leith van Onselen The negative gearing ‘whack-a-mole’ continues, with Treasurer Joe Hockey repeating the lie over the weekend that negative gearing is being used primarily by ordinary workers. From The Australian: In his strongest warning yet against changing the tax breaks, the Treasurer told The Weekend Australian there was “no merit” to amending the

Core Logic-RP Data released its auction market report yesterday, which revealed a small decline in the national auction clearance rate. The preliminary national clearance rate was 75.7%, down from the 77.7% rate recorded last weekend, according to Core Logic-RP Data: Sydney’s clearance rate fell by 3.9% to 78.8%, whereas Melbourne’s was 76.8%, up from the

From our Tezza: Surprise, surprise, the banks needed no further encouragement. Big Mama APRA had said they could increase their investor loan rates and away they all went — with AMP making a meal of it by going up 47 points. But did APRA expect the bank to be hiking their investor rates on existing

The Brent oil price was pole-axed 3% Friday night to $51.68 as the glut takes center stage: We are clearly setting up for a retest of the lows in the mid $48s and if they break, and I suspect they might, further downside to the GFC lows at $40ish is very possible. The news that

From the FT: The Obama administration will on Monday unveil the most far-reaching action on climate change in US history by imposing stringent emissions cuts on the power sector, a move that faces ferocious opposition from political rivals and industry. …Overall, it will demand that the US power sector reduces carbon emissions by 32 per

Here are the iron ore charts for July 31, 2015: As well as Qingdao falls, Tianjin benchmark iron ore fell 3% to $52.90. Unusually, this was despite only minor moves falls in Dalian and rises in Singapore. Indeed, Dalian rallied Friday night to 370 and is virtually unchanged from Thursday. The rebar average bounce continues as CISA

From Mining Australia: With the construction phase winding down for LNG projects on Curtis Island, key contractor Bechtel is laying off approximately 600 employees per month. Gladstone Observer reported that camps have already begun the decommissioning phase, and that the company is looking at offloading equipment and machinery, including $9 million worth of vehicles. More

This much: With respect to our communist overlords, that is ridiculous. And it’s getting worse in top tier cities with CREIS house price data for July showing some insane jumps: The real story remains a bifurcated recovery as the rich get richer and lower tier cities deflate. Given sub tier-one cities account for 95% of

From Bernstein via FTAlphaville: In our view, the worst thing about China’s slowdown is not the risk of some kind of cataclysmic economic meltdown or financial crisis but that – in sector after sector – the investable ways to “play” China shrink to the local names on the right side. If you wanted to participate

Over the weekend we got the official Chinese PMI and it weakened slightly to a headline score of 50 from 50.2. The internals were all weaker as well with both new orders and new export orders below 50: It’s not disastrous but given the amount of stimulus we’ve seen it’s not impressive, either. Manufacturing has been

The vast majority of economists, that are currently forecasting an imminent US rate hike, got smoked Friday night on two fronts. The first was the oil price which is tumbling and clearly headed to $50 and probably a retest of lows in the $48s which very possibly won’t hold, either. This alone would delay the

Global Macro / Markets / Investing: Inflation Paranoia as a Tribal Marker – New York Times Monetary policy at the zero lower bound – VOX Is “Secular Stagnation” a Monetary-Financial Problem or a Fundamental-Technological Problem? – Equitable Growth No Hesitations: On the Great Financial Panic of 2007 – fxdiebold.blogspot.com Bank of England or Federal Reserve:

Chris Weston, Chief Market Strategist at IG Markets Afternoon trade in Australia seems about as quiet and lethargic as the Australian supporters in the Edgbaston stands. If we look at price action though, there hasn’t been a huge amount of concern about holding mining stocks into the weekend and the release of China manufacturing PMI

Cross-posted from The Idiot Tax: If you want to a grand spectacle of over-regulation, under-regulation and bald faced lies told to a populace on a daily basis, come to Australia. You can marvel as the peeps you meet bend over and take it, or just open wide and swallow with the meekest of reactions. Humorous,

By Westpac’s Elliot Clarke US GDP rose at a solid 2.3% annualised pace in Q2, much as expected. Household consumption drove the result, with momentum strengthening from Q1’s 1.7% annualised pace to 2.9% as durables and non-durables growth improved with the weather. Growth in services consumption was more modest at 2.1%, unchanged from Q1. While

Big iron is flat under conflicting pressures today: Idiocy spreads are flat: AGO has still been unable to stick its nose above 4 cents: Dalian futures have rebounded firmly from overnight selling and are now up 1 point on the day. However, Shanghai is falling again so cheer is limited: Looks like a roughly square result

By Leith van Onselen The AFR’s Chris Joye has posted an excellent article this afternoon effectively debunking the RBA’s Dr Peter Tulip, who earlier this month ridiculously claimed that Australian housing was 30% undervalued. In the article, Joye reviews new housing valuation analysis produced by Dr Craig Shepherd, an economist with the $10 billion fund

By Leith van Onselen The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today released Producer Price Index (PPI) data for the June quarter, which registered a 0.3% quarterly increase in final (stage 3) prices and an increase of only 1.1% over the year: The 0.3% increase in final (stage 3) prices was driven primarily by increases in

By Leith van Onselen BT Financial Group chief, Brad Cooper, has entered the superannuation debate, amongst other things calling for retirees to start paying income tax on annual superannuation earnings of more than $150,000. From The AFR: Mr Cooper will on Friday call on the Abbott government to restore the Low Income Superannuation Contribution it